


Fish Of A Feather

by lizzieraindrops



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Ace Beth, Alternate Universe - Beth Lives, Angst, Asexual Character, Demisexual Character, Demisexual Helena, Depression, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Internalized Acephobia, angelfish - Freeform, clone club lives together AU, negativity, self-criticism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-24 22:40:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2599193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizzieraindrops/pseuds/lizzieraindrops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beth wrestles with some of her inner demons and receives some unexpected support from Helena.</p><p>AU where Sarah saved Beth at the train station, and after everything was over, clone club went and lived more or less happily ever after in a big house together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fish Of A Feather

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my lovely beta-fish cheeky-geek-m0nkey on tumblr!

Another day, and Beth was alive. Not a single one went by where she wasn't endlessly grateful that she _hadn't_ met that train face to face. Still, it didn't mean she didn't have good days and bad days. Nor did it mean that today wasn't doing its best to be a crushingly miserable day.

Beth had thought that perusing her own DYAD files might help. Maybe, if she could stare down the nightmare that had driven her to the edge of the tracks in the first place, it would mean she was finally beginning to heal. Her feet carried her to the dim basement where they stored all the papers concerning Project Leda. Hidden away in the dull taupe filing cabinets was their story, collected piece by piece by sweat and blood, now here in their own safekeeping. With morbid curiosity, she ran her fingers lightly along the lines of the drawers until she found the one marked _Childs, E.C_. She opened the drawer with a soft clatter and pulled out a manila folder labeled _June 2012 Status Report._ She held it close to her face with unsteady hands.

Just another case file. Just like hundreds of others she'd read. Except, of course, this one was different. Here, _she_ was the one splayed out on paper for someone to try and understand. Once, she'd been a detective. Sifting through the dry data, seeking to understand the connections and the forces that moved people; understanding had been _her_ job. Yet here she was, an imperfect collage of unnecessarily personal history and statistics. What was she in this moment, both the reader and the read, but neither watched nor any longer a watcher?

Perhaps forcing herself to confront the ugly snarl of truth and lies that had ruined her would fix her, she thought. Maybe, through sheer brute force of will, she could make herself come to terms with it and put it behind her all at once. She stared at the first page of the report. It took most of her energy to hold her gaze in place long enough to read the black print letters, the faint blue tracings of a pen low on ink. But the words brought no relief, no instant catharsis. All they did was remind her of the many deceptions that had been woven into the fabric of her life. The names written in at the top of the form slammed into her, leaving the cavity of her chest feeling cracked and fragile.

_SUBJECT: Childs, Elizabeth Claire._

_MONITOR: Dierden, P._

They made her remember the way the soft restless ringing of the train tracks had turned into a deadly siren song.

She'd hardly read past the first few sentences of the actual report before she let the file fall from her grasp. It didn't even send papers flying everywhere as it ought, to illustrate her writhing internal chaos. It merely fell limp to the ground, making a sad slap against the hard concrete floor. With blurring vision, she dragged her stumbling body back up out of the basement.

The burning in her eyes threatened tears. She found herself collapsing into the corner of the couch in the little upstairs living room. Her feet, always running, had carried her up two flights of stairs. They had carried her to the train station, once, too, but they hadn't been running steady the way they always used to. Like now, they'd been tentative, trembling. Three steps from the edge of the tracks; two; three again. As few as one, before Sarah had swept in and carried her to safety. Her savior had shouldered the burdens she couldn't bear any longer, literally stepping into her shoes to walk the path from which Beth had strayed. She was so grateful to Sarah; but she was still so ashamed that she herself hadn't been enough. She had never been enough.

Beth lay there, curled in on herself, crying quietly in the darkening room. Dusk was falling outside the wide windows, and turning on a light hadn't even occurred to her. Even now it was an unimportant idea, tangential and easily dismissed. Suddenly she gasped and looked up, startled by a husky whisper very close by.

"Sestra Beth?"

Beth wiped her eyes clear and saw Helena sitting in the bay window across from her. She must have been there the whole time. She was sitting with both feet pulled up onto Alison's homemade floral seat cushions, one hand on the glass of the window. It looked like she'd been watching the sun set. She looked utterly serene. She pulled her hand away from the glass, and the last rays of light that lit up her hair from behind like a halo also made her smudged fingerprints sparkle. Sugar, probably.

"Helena," Beth said with relief. She let her head fall heavily back onto the couch. It was just Helena. Helena didn't judge, at least not for things like sobbing breakdowns. They'd shared more than one mutually sleepless night in quiet companionship, when they found themselves roaming the halls in the dark. All of them had nightmares sometimes, but the others tended to cope privately. They hid it better than Beth and Helena could.

"You cry, sestra Beth." Helena said softly. "Do your night-demons follow you into waking again?"

"No," Beth said, closing her eyes. Not that they needed to, she thought. Her real demons had walked in daylight by her side all her life. They'd taken all the pieces of her and laid them out on page after page of clinical records. She'd never even gotten the chance to choose what to share and what to hide. Trust meant nothing when you weren't allowed secrets. She still hadn't summoned the courage to find out who her childhood monitors were. Finding out about Paul had done everything but destroy her. He'd whispered lie after sweet lie into her ears, to keep her near and conveniently observable.

Beth had had to pretend she still believed her personally tailored lie, to protect Alison and Cosima; the elusive Tony; the even more elusive Sarah; Katja. (Well, not Katja. She hadn't been able to do enough to save _her_.) Beth had always valued truth and honesty above all things, but suddenly these people she barely knew - these _clones_ \- were the only people in her life that she could truly believe were not lying to her.

They were protected, ironically, by Beth's own lying and secrecy. Cracking cases for a living had not taught Beth how to keep them closed. Indeed, it had only impressed upon her the many ways by which her very-illegal, covert investigation could be busted wide open. But how else could she even _try_ to protect them all from the monitors, the zealots, the spies and unknown agents that hounded them? Their presumed ignorance was their only precarious defense. They were laughably vulnerable in the face of the myriad powerful forces vying for control over them. Project Leda had drawn ruthless opportunists like a full trash can drew flies.

She heard Helena crossing the space between them, her dress rustling faintly. Beth cracked her eyelids to see her kneeling on the floor before her, eyes wide and warm.

"What makes you cry, Beth?"

Beth cast about in her mind, trying to remember. Disoriented, she had slid so far down into this wretched familiar spiral of dark thoughts that she couldn't quite recall what had sent her peeling down its slopes. Then she remembered the file left lying on the basement floor. Her heart beat hollowly in the darkness of her chest.

"They lied, Helena," Beth said in a low voice. "About everything. To all of us. Except Rachel, for all the good it did her. And then they just lied to her about other stuff." Helena stared at her solemnly. "Sometimes, it just hurts to remember that someone you... someone you trusted, that they lied to you. That they told all your secrets. Even the harmless, pointless details that nobody needs to know."

"You speak of Paul," Helena said quietly.

Beth nodded into the arm of the couch. Her eyes welled again silently as she recalled the latest needle to her heart. "He called me - a cold fish," she sighed. "It's in my file. Right there in my monthly status report for anyone to read."

Helena's eyebrows drew together as she tilted her head slightly. "I don't understand?"

Beth closed her eyes again. She noted the odd, skewed sensation of tears running sideways across her temple, instead of down her cheeks as they did when she could sit upright. "Cold fish," she said listlessly. "It means I was awful in bed. Cold, heartless, loveless. Like having sex with an actual cold piece of fish, I guess." Beth ran her hand through her hair and let her fingers rest on her scalp. "I never told him that I really wasn't into it. I didn't mind _that_ much, if it made him happy. But I guess it didn't. _I_ didn't." Even now, when the fact haunted her constantly, it was difficult to believe. The one for whom she'd gone so far out of her way to demonstrate her love hadn't even loved her back, and never had. She let her hand fall back to the couch cushion. Her hair fell over her face, hiding her from the last of the orange sunset light.

Something brushed Beth's eyelashes. Her eyes fluttered open. Helena had moved the foremost lock of her dark hair out of her eyes. Pinching the ends of several strands with her fingertips and pulling them aside, she leaned close to peer at her.

"So long, and you have not begun to heal," Helena said. "You remain trapped in darkness without any light." She gently twisted the lock of Beth's hair back and forth between her fingertips, making the dry ends rasp against each other. Beth met Helena's gaze, so like her own, but intense in a way hers had never been. Beth blinked slowly but didn't look away.

"I don't know how." Beth shrugged. She wondered if you could recover from a life of failures. Not likely, when she couldn't even get past a minor - if true - insult.

"Beth." Helena let go of her hair and cupped her hand over one of Beth's. Beth was surprised; she rarely demonstrated such physical affection toward any of them except Sarah, and even that was infrequent.

"Listen, sestra. Paul knows nothing." She made a scornful scoffing noise. "It is his love that is cold, not yours. If he hurt you this way, it is not love. Sarah teach me this. _You_ teach me. All my sestre teach me that true family does not hurt you this way."

"It's not just Paul, though, Helena," Beth said miserably. "It's me. I've always been like this. With everyone." She realized that her hand was shaking as it trembled against the stillness of Helena's. It was incredible, the effortless grace and poise Helena could command when she was centered, balanced. Whole. "I thought - I thought it was different, with Paul. I loved him more than anyone else, but - it wasn't enough. And then, it wasn't even real!" Her voice caught thickly in her throat between sobs. "And then I had to pretend I - that I still thought it _was_ \- t-to protect them - but I couldn't - I _couldn't_. Shit, why can't I ever - I guess I - I'm not capable of caring enough to even - to get my shit together -"

"No!" Helena said vehemently, startling Beth into teary silence. She gripped Beth's hand tenaciously and locked eyes with her. "Do not think these thoughts. They keep you in darkness. Did Paul make you think you have no heart? What of your love for us? I see it every day, how you care for us all. How you love Sarah like I do, how you love Alison. You love so fiercely that your eyes burn with it. I know that your flame protected us. Protected _them_. From me." Helena's eyes were glinting now, too. Her hand was clamped around Beth's like a vise, trembling with effort and emotion. Beth could only listen wordlessly.

"Without you, I never would have found my family. I would have k-killed Sarah. You kept her safe from me, long enough for me to find the true light." Helena bent her head to rest her brow against the knuckles of the hand covering Beth's. Beth could barely hear her next words through the mass of curls tickling her wrist. "You saved my family, and for that I love you, sestra. I am sorry, that you had to hurt, to keep them safe from me."

"Oh, Helena," Beth said, at a loss. She patted Helena's head tentatively with her free hand, and Helena let her. "You didn't know. How could you? We were all lied to."

"But you saw through the lie. I believed it. I hunted them, and you shielded them." All she could see were the several inches of grown-out roots on her bent head, but she felt the words moving against her fingers. "You were our true angel while my wings were bleeding."

Angel? she thought, taken aback. "I'm not some guardian angel, Helena. I _couldn't_ protect them." It was just another reason why she was a failure.

"But you did anyway." Helena looked up slowly with a deep sigh. She appeared to have undergone some kind of catharsis, revealing her fears of what could have been. "I know how the lies, they weigh on you. You carried so many, you broke your own wings to protect us. But now that mine are whole, I will guard you from yourself. The way Sarah guard me. You are not alone anymore."

Beth had been just one woman, trying to fight off unnumbered unseen enemies all alone. She'd never had a chance. But maybe, just maybe, Helena was right. She had given everything she possibly could; perhaps she _couldn't_ have given more. Maybe she'd done _just_ enough, to give the balance a chance to swing in their favor. Perhaps, just as before, she could trust Sarah, Helena, and the others to be strong where she was not.

"Maybe... we all can look after each other," Beth said aloud. "That's why we're all together here now, right?"

Helena leaned her head sideways to look at her over their still clasped hands. "Yes. Do not doubt your heart, sestra. It is as strong as Sarah's. Stronger than mine. Any who think not, I make _them_ cold fish." Beth wasn't sure if Helena's little smile meant that she was serious or that she was joking. She decided not to think about it too much, and mentally shrugged it off.

They sat in silence for a moment, yet Beth's mind was still restless. "Don't you think it's weird, though? That I've never been attracted to anyone like that?" she said. No matter what she had or hadn't done for her sisters, it was hard to shake this feeling that she was inadequate, in so many different ways and in so many different parts of her life.

Helena shrugged. "I do not know. Most of the time I do not. Only sometimes, with special people." Helena grinned at her rakishly. "Like my boyfriend Jesse."

"Euhh! TMI, Helena," Beth said with an unexpected laugh. Helena giggled throatily. Still holding Beth's hand, she wriggled into a more comfortable position sitting on the floor next to the couch. She turned her head to look out the window again, watching the sky fade from orange to dusky purple.

"Wait, really?" Beth asked, suddenly intrigued. "Just Jesse?"

"Yes." Helena said. "Why, should there be others?"

"Well," Beth floundered, "I don't know. I just kinda assumed there _were_ , for everyone who isn't me. No one ever shuts up about it."

"Perhaps we are two of a kind," Helena said unconcernedly.

Maybe I have a kind, Beth thought.

_You are not alone anymore._

Beth felt some of the tension she always carried draining away, leaving her chest lighter and fuller, even though she was still tightly curled up on the couch. She let her legs stretch out a little bit, relaxing the muscles even more. It felt like tainted water washing away after drawing poisons out of her body. She felt cleaner, and something beginning to resemble whole. She lay still and watched dusk fall with Helena until she could see several stars glimmering in the darkness.

"Helena?" she said after a long time.

"I am here, sestra." Helena's muted voice issued from her starry silhouette.

Beth felt the ghost of a real smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Me too," she said. Then, "Thanks."

"You are welcome." At long last, Helena let go of Beth's hand. Beth's heart sank a little as she gathered herself up as if to leave. However, Helena merely piled herself into the armchair next to Beth's couch and curled up comfortably. "Goodnight and sweet dreams, angelfish."

The peculiar endearment fell oddly, yet soothingly on Beth's ears. She felt the smile pull itself fully onto her face. Her chest lightened once more as if someone had lit a single candle inside the shell of a lantern.

Maybe things would be alright. Maybe _she_ was alright.

Another day, and Beth was alive.


End file.
